U.S. should insist Israel obey international law

Published
7:00 pm EST, Friday, January 22, 2010

To the Editor:

Murray Bruckel recently felt it necessary to praise Israel for sending a medical contingent to Haiti, believing that somehow such action would shame Judge Goldstone, the Jewish Zionist who wrote a courageous and well-documented report on Israel 's attack on the Palestinians in Gaza last year.

It would have been far more praiseworthy had Israel sent that same field hospital to take care of the thousands of casualties, mostly civilian, that they had inflicted during their attack on the already beleaguered Gazan population.

According to a recent report of the World Health Organization, Israel has, instead, restricted medical aid from entering Gaza, even after the fighting stopped.

The Fourth Geneva convention is clear about the responsibility of belligerents or occupying forces to care for the casualties they inflict and outlaws the deliberate targeting of civilians.

It boggles the mind that Israel destroyed hospitals, clinics, schools and other institutions that provide care during their attack on Gaza.

Bruckel complains about the many UN Resolutions against Israeli policies but fails to mention that they were voted on legitimately in reaction to Israel's consistent violations of the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions.

The United States taxpayer has supported Israel with billions of dollars in money and arms yet Israel continues to impose apartheid conditions on occupied Palestine against the express will of several successive American administrations and is joined in this admonition by many other nations.

Should we ignore the evidence from many international organizations that Israel, with its walls and checkpoints, is preventing other essential materiel and humanitarian supplies from entering Gaza to help repair the damage caused by their attack?

No, as Bruckel himself pointed out in a previous letter castigating Iran for its perceived violations, we should insist that, like any other nation, Israel obeys international law.